Every time he attended a party he dressed up in his best clothes and snorted a few grams “to free his tongue,” as he wrote to his fiancée in a letter sent in 1886. However, what at first seemed like a harmless habit , over time it became an addiction that disturbed the spirit and judgment of the Austrian genius.
Cocaine: from South America to Vienna
Freud wrote about his experiences with cocaine in an essay he titled Über coca , but until recently these stories had been hidden. This twelve-year period in which the psychoanalyst consumed cocaine was brilliantly summarized in the book An Anatomy of Addiction (“Anatomy of Addiction”), Howard Markel professor of the University of Michigan This essay narrates Sigmund Freud’s relationship with cocaine. Freud gradually increased his consumption because he believed that cocaine was something like an elixir of life. Although the narrative thread of Markel’s work is the history of drugs, the author reviews in depth the origins of cocaine, which had widespread implementation in Europe and the United States, and which many decades later was declared illegal. .
Thus, we know that the explorers of South America At the beginning of the 19th century, they were the ones who brought to their countries of origin the coca leaves that caused so much fury among the tribes and native population, who had the habit of chewing them. European and American explorers wanted to discover what were those magical properties that provided immunity to indigenous people from fatigue and hunger. Chemical experts from many parts of the globe inspected and examined the plant until, in 1860, they managed to detect and isolate the cocaine alkaloid responsible for the stimulation of the nervous system that, apparently, conferred these advantages.
At that time, Freud decided to dedicate his efforts to the study of therapeutic uses of cocaine, with the aim of increasing its prestige among the Viennese scientific community. Previous experiments had shown, wrongly, that cocaine could cure addiction to morphine (widely used at that time in a homemade way to relieve pain). With this theoretical basis, Freud began to treat a patient who suffered from chronic pain with the stimulant. Later, it was he himself who decided to try cocaine. Freud realized that he had a notable effectiveness in avoiding anxiety and increasing libido Soon Freud’s sympathy with cocaine was total, and he used to prescribe it to family and friends as a habit, to “turn bad days into good, and good days into better.”
Freud was convinced that his experiments with cocaine would represent a revolution in the world of mental health and that this would catapult him to fame. “Whatever the reason, calming a migraine, abdominal pain, sinusitis or a nostalgic mood, Freud used cocaine to alleviate the discomfort,” reveals Markel. No one was aware of the risks posed by the white powder. Anyone could purchase cocaine in pharmacies without any type of control or prescription and merchants benefited from the rise of the substance to turn it into the essential component of countless ointments, juices, cigarettes and even food products, such as some margarines.
Coca-Cola, Mariani Wine and other uses of cocaine
It is true that, before the big drug lords and cartels emerged, the Italian-French chemist Angelo Mariani He made a huge fortune from a mixture of coca leaf extracts and Bordeaux wine. He Mariani Wine as it was named, had a tremendous impact to the point of being, for many years, the favorite drink of great personalities such as Jules Verne, Thomas Edison, Alexander Dumas and Pope Leo XIII
Its ability to “invigorate the body and mind,” as proclaimed in the press advertisements of the time, was able to attract the curiosity of John Syth Pemberton, an American war veteran addicted to morphine consumption. Pemberton, who resided in atlanta patented a tonic similar to Mariani’s that he named Coca Wine French. This product evolved and went from an alcoholic beverage to a non-alcoholic one after the Dry Law in the state of Georgia being renamed Coca Cola
Awareness of the dangers of drugs
It would still be many years before science understood the catastrophic consequences of abuse in cocaine consumption. Freud stopped taking it in 1896, at the age of 40. He began to experience tachycardia and noticed how his intellectual performance decreased considerably The cocaine alkaloid itself was the cause of the premature death of his friend, and could have caused the death of several of his patients. Freud, for a few years, became such a habitual user that he often had a red, wet nose. To end the bad habit of consumption, he tried to stay busy as long as possible: he got up at six in the morning, consulted twelve patients, and read and wrote until well after midnight.
Freud managed to rehabilitate himself and completely gave up his addiction. However, William Halsted who was one of the pioneers of modern surgery, He was never able to get rid of cocaine use After studying Freud’s texts on the substance, he set out to investigate whether he could use it as a local anesthetic, thus replacing ether and chloroform. With this objective he acted as a guinea pig himself, but within a few weeks the first effects began to flourish. Unable to concentrate during consultations, he stopped going to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he had just been named chief of surgery. On one occasion, Halsted had to leave the operating room in the middle of surgery because the effects of cocaine did not allow him to even hold the surgical instruments. He finally agreed to enter a phrenopathic hospital, but he never recovered from the psychological consequences caused by the drug, and also developed a dependence on morphine.
At the beginning of the 20th century, there were many addicts to the cocaine alkaloid, and most managed to stay in the shadows thanks to its supposed invigorating properties. “It was not easy to lead a double life, being a renowned doctor in the public sphere and, simultaneously, a cocaine user, a drug addict,” explains Markel. The Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle He was one of these prominent addicts, and although he never revealed his relationship with cocaine, he left traces of his habit in many of his works. sherlock holmes, Doyle’s most emblematic character and who was considered his alter ego, had a habit of injecting himself with a cocaine preparation when he had no intriguing cases to investigate. His intrepid friend, Dr. Watson was concerned about Sherlock’s consumption, and tried to persuade him to stop injecting cocaine.
Cocaine: social stigma and abandonment of consumption
Over time, the drug was stigmatized and governments increased control over its distribution and consumption. Decades after the rise of Freud’s work, the psychoanalyst had to face countless criticisms for the habit he acquired when he was just taking his first steps as a researcher and therapist. The controversy over the degree of influence of white powder on Freud’s work can never be resolved, but most researchers agree in pointing out that its brightest period came after giving up its consumption
Freud himself acknowledged in the last years of his life, perhaps as a way of exonerating his past, “my research on cocaine was a distraction that kept me eager to conclude.”
More curiosities about the life of Sigmund Freud
The Austrian psychoanalyst had an intense and curious life. You can check it by reading the following article:
